Mike Adams
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Posts posted by Mike Adams
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I have a hydraulic drive with voac/parker pumps/motors and it works very well however I imagine to buy such a system now would be very expensive although you can pick up the pumps on ebay quite cheap if you are prepared to wait. They are very efficient and as you have said allows the engine to be placed anywhere. Mine is under the front deck so you can hardly hear the engine when boating. Why don't you use a PRM drop box. An oversize one such as a PRM601 would probably give you about the right drop. Cutting the beds about with an angle grinder isn't that difficult and even if you can't weld you could get someone in to do this.
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Determine if it is the same coolant in the engine heat exchanger and skin tank first. Unlikely to be a heat exchanger in the mannicooler if it is a skin tank used for cooling as you would need a second circulating pump. Maybe the header tank on the skin tank is just to prevent any air locks. In any case you probably have an engine issue such as a head gasket. Check by filling up the coolant and starting the engine with the pressure cap off. A lot of bubbles or blowing the coolant out as it warms up will indicate a problem with the head gasket/cracked head etc.
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Question is does it dissolve bitumen?
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1mm of metal loss produces about 10mm of scale so you don't need much rust to produce some scale. The first survey I had on the tidal Thames in the 1980's was done with a man with a big hammer - no ultrasonics. You could tell the thickness of the plates by the sound. If they are thin and scaly you get a dead sort of note and very thin you make a dent or a hole otherwise a sharp note if they are OK. Not very scientific but seemed to be the standard method at that time. In my experience you don't tend to get so much pitting inside than out but If I had the boat I would want to know what is going on in the bilges so would make so access points to ensure there is not any water in there anyway. You don't say how old the boat is but you shouldn't allow rain water from the bow or stern to get into the cabin area.
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9 hours ago, The Grey Goose said:
Thats officially documented is it or just the way that you would like things to be?
That is exactly the response I would have expected. It's all about entitlement and not conforming to rules and conventions. I suggest you read the Thames Launch bylaws. Further down river abuse of mooring sites and non private banks has led to draconian council rules to prevent abuse of temporary mooring rules and conventions and this will inevitably lead to further restrictions. The truth is that if you want to keep and live legitimately on a large boat on the Thames you need very deep pockets.
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Surely the biggest difference between the Thames and canals is the mooring cost. Probably twice the cost on the Thames compared to canals outside London. As a long term boater on the Thames, both recreational and commercial I am fed up with these huge wide beam boats and barges. They take up most of the moorings meant for cruising and hire boats on the 24hour moorings and just seem to move around the same moorings or stay there until they get pushed off. They spend ages at water points and are a general pain. If you want to live on a boat find a residential mooring or go into a marina which is going to cost you a lot more than the license fee.
The TC provided these 24 hour moorings for cruising boats not houseboats.
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17 hours ago, Journeyman36 said:
Aside from Chertsey there is the installation of the new viaduct for HS2 - that's a lengthy closure.
That doesn't start until the end of Feb. If you left now you could be through the 2 planned closures on the Thames before 2nd Jan and get to Reading and either wait for Chertsey to reopen or be craned out somewhere with a crane on site such as Reading marine.
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I would just take it down the Thames. The red boards will be off sometime soon and you are going downstream anyway. If Chertsey Lock is closed for an extended period there are various boatyards upriver that could lift it (Such as Reading Marine) with a crane on site and get it transported from there but unless it is sinking I would wait for the Chertsey lock to reopen. I haven't checked but there may be other planned closures on the Thames but often there is a window when you can get through.
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How are your AGM's charged? If they are just connected in parallel to the charger I would separate them and check them individually for voltage. If you get a shorted cell they can easily get cooked by the alternator. 6 years use is quite good anyway.
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All this stuff about MIC is interesting. Is there any scientific test for presence of the microbes? What I have failed to find out if hot zinc spraying works as a preventive? My hull was shotblasted, hot zinc sprayed aand epoxy coated a few years ago. I assume if will kill them off but will it prevent future action?
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1 hour ago, dmr said:
Its difficult to lift out (through the side hatch) so would be much more convenient to do the out and in on the same day, which is what we did last time.
I'm a cheapskate but I would lift it up from the roof, take off the sump and replace the liners and pistons. I would be concerned how a new engine would perform at low speed and you really don't want 700 -880rpm tickover. As time goes by they make subtle changes to the design to reduce emissions. The last one I had really didn't like a slow tickover. A mass on the flywheel can work. I managed to get a car diesel engine running at 400rpm by doubling the flywheel.
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Why not run the alternator via a belt on the outside of the flywheel or I have seen an aluminium washing machine pulley fixed to the front of the flywheel. Not trad but effective.
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Yes but I made up a tool to do it. Some JD seals come with a plastic part to press them in. It's a funny 2 part seal as I remember that you cannot separate so you only get one chance. I will try to find the tool but it was a few years ago now. If you have a stanadyne pump rather than a CAV it is probably a US sourced unit. I think the engines had options for different sized sae flywheels but Beta may just have added a mass ring. I think Beta set the tickover at 400rpm which probably didn't allow enough lubrication to be thrown on the bores and hence the increased wear. You can replace the liners in the engine without removing the crankshaft. The JD manuals are very good if you haven't got them.
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I have rebuilt a couple of these engines and replacing the liners is the only difficult bit and that isn't very. I found an agricultural supplier specialising in JD in the midlands that sold me the pistons and liners. I will see if I can find a contact. I would think, other than the liners/pistons that anything else is worn out at all. I think beta messed around with the fueling of these engines to make them run slower and maybe they had a heavier flywheel . If you buy an off the shelf engine from JD it is likely to want to tick over at the standard 800rpm which may be too fast for your application. You could probably repair it for less than grand.
I found this chap helpful for parts
Nick Young Tractor Parts LtdUnit 2, The Forge, Moor Rd, North Owersby, Market Rasen LN8 3PR -
I would pull out of it as you cannot be sure of the cause and if it were to continue it would make the boat very difficult to sell on. I have seen the odd pit like those deep ones but not to that extent. Hull condition and construction are fundamentals for a narrowboat. Forget the fancy painting and interior. I would just move on.
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I was under the impression that blacking did not cure in any meaningful sense. All that happens is that the solvent evaporates. As blacking is lighter than water I suppose if it has not dried it will just float off. Not sure what happens to the remaining solvent if you submerse it before it is fully dried. Maybe it continues to disperse into the water and the blacking eventually dries out.
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The main problem is you have a live terminal close to the steel weedhatch cover which could easily short out if you were removing the cover in a hurry. I thought they all had to have an insulating cover to prevent such things happening but maybe I have misread the rules.
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It's the old ford bsd tractor engine
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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:
guess the first thing to do is take some WD40 and a hammer to it.
That is definitely not going to help. As previously said there is a multi-pin connector on the engine loom that is prone to poor connection. It is quite easy to fit a mechanical stop as there is a lever next to where the throttle control goes on to the engine. You can find a stop cable on ebay or even a bit of string depending on the arrangement
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It looks like the sort of damage you might get if it was say moored on a tideway with lots of wash making it crash against something heavy like a metal or concrete wall. Is it the same on both sides. A lot of old lighters and tugs on the Thames are like that. Probably very expensive to repair but probably would not cause a structural problem.
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Please get rid of those stupid fenders. They are going to get caught break off and get stuck in the lock gates etc.
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I had one of these 40 years ago the hand start was enclosed in an aluminium casing and chain driven from the crankshaft. There are various scrap 2dm engines around. You could not fit an alternator in place of the dynamo drive shown in your photo so I suspect someone has modified the front end of the engine to take an alternator so you will not be able to fit the handstart if this is the case.
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I think some of the CA45 type starters have a rotation arrow on the body of the starter but you can always tell once you have taken it off because of the spiral on the shaft.
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20 hours ago, David Mack said:
Back in the 80s I knew a bloke who had done just that. He had a splendid teak and mahogany centre cockpit cruiser,
That was 'Stan' on Walrus. He had a Volvo Penta engine that would he would start on petrol and when it had warmed up a bit feed lpg into the intake manifold using the manifold vaccum to operate the gas valve. It did work well as I remember although I was not sure it was safe even then. It never blew up even though he was a heavy smoker as well. I suppose you are safe as long as the engine is running as this sucks in a lot of air from the engine compartment and turn the gas off at the bottle before you want to stop the engine.
Hydraulic drive for John Deere JD3
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
I made up a lifting frame inside the boat out of scaffold tube and key clamps so you can lift the engine clear and its always useful if you need to change the engine mounts etc. What is on the back of the JD now? They are SAE flywheels/housing. I had to make up my own drive plate. JD did marinise their own engines but tick over is about 800rpm and Beta tried to run them slower but that caused problems so you might be going too fast in a narrowboat at tickover with a JD3 so a variable swash plate motor may be better than a fixed bent axis one to give you better control at low speed.